Daily True-zings
A couple of weeks ago, my psychiatrist decided to decrease my lamictal to see if it would reducemy hand tremors. I really cannot say if it worked or not. What I can say is that I started to relapse into depression. My thought was that it was related, so after a couple of weeks at a lower dose I decided to return to my original dosage. Guess what? It didn't help. Looks like I am simply in a depressive episode. My thought on the matter is that it is rooted in School stress. Family, school, and working on getting a job adds up to substantial pressure.
I've said this before, and I will say it again, damn school is harder 15 years later. Things that stuck in my Brain and immediate made sense before have become mud through which my mind is trudging. All in all, I am getting my ass handed to me. In yesteryear, straight A's came without much effort, but now I struggle to get B's and even C's in some cases. Screw that. It is drilling a hole through my psyche, right down to my self-worth and pouring the acid of discontent and feelings of failure right into it.
Ironically, I am generally the most responsible person I meet there. Duh, I am older and seasoned. I have had a professional career and understand what it means to be reliable, but it's the letters that matter in school. Damn those letters. Character counts for something... but not yet.
No Mathematical Degree Required
More work = (more failure... potentially) = More depression = More suicidal thoughts
The spontaneous implementation of unreasonable assertions by my brain to take actions that will devastate my family piss the hell out of me.
But how to control them? I struggle with this. I have struggled with this for years. Find a happy place. Utilize resources. Use your action plan. Diffuse, diffuse, diffuse. For those of you that have experienced a depressive or suicidal episode, you understand how utterly and completely it can consume your thoughts and push out any hope of, well, hope. Seeking the refuge of aid becomes an insurmountable task.
Hill After Hill
Obviously I have made it this far. Last semester's relapse was significantly harder than this semester's. That doesn't make it welcome. How can I make it or how do I make it? I guess it is by doing what I did years ago. Working. Keeping busy. Wearing myself out. All of the best self-medicating actions I used as a professional. No matter how hard I have tried to find the root of my personal hell and deal with it, nothing has come of it.
Who else has experienced this? No matter how hard you try, you cannot find the true, addressable root of your emotions in therapy. No matter how much you attack the thoughts and feelings, there can truly never be a resolution. I have been unable to accept, and may never be capable to accept, that my troubles lie primarily in fucked up brain chemistry. I dare say that if god is up there, he is truly just a child with an ant farm. "He, he. Let's see how this one does with a screwed up brain."
Quarantine
Containment is key. Contain the brain, contain the contagion. The contagion that infects the rest of my thoughts. Distract and stimulate. That is my plan.
This post first appeared on Somehow Forward - My Struggle With Bipolar Depression And Suicide, please read the originial post: here
